our days

(okay...the lighting is horrid...but seriously, doesn't this picture make you want to grab jilly and eat her up!)

little snippets...

the past two weeks have been a bit of a blur...actually, make that the past two months....or even years maybe...

our days and weeks have settled into a bit of a routine though.

mondays find the big girls at "school"...daddy takes--leaving the house around 7:45, while i am still finishing breakfast and coffee and jilly is still sleeping. then jilly and i pick them up in the afternoon around 2:45. while kate and libs are gone jilly and i have some extra time to play; then while she naps (sweet blessed blissful still napping twice a day girl) i do all the laundry and lots of picking up....and then we tend to run a few errands before pick up time.

last monday i finished some cleaning up and decided to break out my sewing machine and do something with the elephant fabric i bought months ago....voila...a jilly outfit. i plan to have her wear a long sleeve shirt under it, because seriously, it is getting downright chilly here in indiana (hooray!).

tuesdays and wednesdays are our "at home" days...relaxing, playing, some school time while jillian is napping. both of the big girls LOVE school-time...they would do workbook pages for hours--especially kate, she did almost an entire Kumon tracing book in just an hour....and we do lots of reading. typically we've been trying to hit the library every other week...coming home with a bag busting at the seams with books, and then popping popcorn, snuggling up and reading the morning away. oh...and games...lots and lots of game playing and puzzles...this morning alone we played "word world match" (like memory but with word world characters), chutes and ladders, puppy dog bingo, and cranium cariboo...

elizabeth is working through the "explode the code" workbooks...i love that they incorporate reading AND writing. while she was gung-ho about reading, for quite awhile she was "reluctant" when it came to writing, so it was nice that this involved writing without her really realizing it! :) now, however, she has gone crazy with writing...give the girlie a blank notebook and pen or pencil and she will write and write and write...sounding out words, lots of phonetic spellings. lately she loves drawing pictures for her friends and then sounding out and writing their name on them, or creating her own "games" in the notebook...it is precious! we are also working through some "hooked on phonics" and using the "happy phonics" program--which is fun for both girls.



kate just started "get ready for the code"--the -primer for "explode the code"...and she is really enjoying it. she could sit all day tracing letters, etc...but she isn't quite able to "freehand" most of them yet...so that part of the books is a bit over her level, but i'm sure she'll amaze me and get there so quickly!

thursdays are MOPS day...whether it is a weekly meeting, steering meeting, or a meeting with my discussion group leaders...it pretty much fills up the morning on thursday between the drive there and back...and it is nice to get out of the house.

and then friday...the blissful "daddy only works a half day" day. we love fridays. lately we've had a lot of pizza picnic friday evenings...and every other week we have flock group (our small group for church), which is always exciting--especially since there are as many kiddos (most of them 5 and under) in our group as there are adults!

and finally...our newest endeavor...cloth diapering. so i thought about going cloth before jilly was born, and then scored some fab deals on disposables and headed that route. but when we found out we were going to welcome #4 i got more serious in my research. i had lots of suggestions, and then a sweet friend let me borrow her stash, which was mostly bumgenius 3.0. oh my goodness...i always *thought* cloth diapers would be inconvenient, messy, and stinky...but they weren't. actually, my house smells better (why wouldn't it since i am flushing the "stink" away!) and it is no harder than disposables (and seriously, as much laundry as i already do, how much harder is a load of diaps a few times a week!). i even cloth diapered at my parents this past weekend when we were out of town, and it wasn't a big deal! needless to say, we're hooked. we decided to go ahead and start jilly now, using mostly the flip system (i'm using prefolds for the liners rather than their "official liners" since a friend loaned them to me for free--can't beat that price!--but i love the disposable insert option for when we travel, etc!) by cotton babies. however, with the new baby i will be using bumgenius 4.0, and honestly, as our stash grows (a sweet friend is even hosting a "cloth diaper shower" for me...and we've been blessed in the diaper department already!) i will likely use those for jilly much of the time as well...i just like the pocket diaper convenience! for now i have two of the 4.0s (bought during a "seconds" clearance sale at cotton babies)--and we haven't even used those yet, three flip covers (and 12 inserts--two official flip inserts we are borrowing and newborn sized prefolds-which are the perfect fit-we've been loaned). i've spent a grand total of $50 at this point, and jilly is cloth diapered full time (aside from nights...mostly because we have generous stash of size 4s in the closet already)...definitely a cost savings...better for the environment...cute little tushie...and seriously, cloth diapering just kind of gives me the same satisfaction as milling my own wheat (its okay...you can call me weird!). that may be more than you wanted to know...but if you are enticed and want more info, let me know! :)